Inside Media Matters: David Brock’s enemies list

An internal Media Matters For America memo obtained by The Daily Caller reveals that the left-wing media watchdog group employs an “opposition research team” to target its political enemies. Included in the list of targets are right-leaning websites, conservative think tanks, prominent financiers and donors, and more than a dozen specific Fox News Channel and News Corporation employees.

One of those singled out for scrutiny in the memo is PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, a self-described libertarian. Thiel “directly funded, through a small government group, prior racist attack videos by James O’Keefe, the right-wing operative who staged the recent ACORN video sting,” states the memo. “Thiel’s role in funding such attacks has gone completely unremarked and largely uninvestigated.”

“An opposition research team will serve to hold Thiel and others like him accountable.”

In addition to Thiel, the memo contains this list of “preliminary targets”:

News Corp

Fox News Channel

Fox Business Network

Fox News’ websites

Conservative news sites

WorldNetDaily

BigHollywood.com

NewsMax

BigGovernment.com

Conservative think thanks

The Heritage Foundation

American Enterprise Institute

Cato Institute

News Corp executives

Rupert Murdoch

Chase Carey

David DeVoe

Lawrence Jacobs

James Murdoch

Conservative donors

Peter Thiel

Richard Mellon Scaife

Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation

John M. Olin Foundation

Koch Family Foundations

Fox News executives

CEO Roger Ailes

Senior vice president Michael Clemente

Vice president of news Sean Smith

Vice president of new editorial product Jay Wallace

Fox Business Network executive vice president Kevin Magee

Fox personalities

Glenn Beck

Sean Hannity

Bill O’Reilly

Fox senior production and corporation staff

Hannity executive producer John Finley

On the Record executive producer Meade Cooper

O’Reilly Factor senior executive producer David Tabacoff

Fox & Friends executive producer Lauren Petterson

Political figures

Carly Fiorina

David Vitter

Eric Cantor

John Boehner

Mitch McConnell

Michele Bachmann

Steve King

“In all likelihood,” the memo concludes, “we will produce volumes of useful data week after week.”